Water channels wind through the mudflats at the mouth of the Stikine River in Southeast Alaska near Wrangell, AK as seen from an Alaska Airlines jet on Friday, July 3, 2015.
Unfortunately, British Columbia’s mining industry is once again facing false and misleading allegations regarding the Alaska/B.C. transboundary region. Despite debunking these claims numerous times through direct letters and media coverage in both Alaska and B.C., they persist.The assertion that B.C.’s mining laws are inadequate is a subjective opinion rather than an objective truth. In fact, over the past decade, the B.C.
Regarding Teck’s steelmaking coal mines in Elk Valley, almost a decade before the involvement of the International Joint Commission , Teck launched the Elk Valley Water Quality Plan in 2014. Teck has invested CDN $1.4 billion towards the construction of four water treatment facilities and more than 250 water quality and biological monitoring stations in the Elk Valley and Koocanusa Reservoir. These treatment facilities are removing 95% to 99% of selenium from 77.5 million litres of water daily.
The British Columbia and Alaska Technical Working Group on Monitoring , tasked with collecting transboundary water quality data, directly contradicts the unsubstantiated claims of pollution in the Unuk River. Theirfound that samples collected downstream from the British Columbia-Alaska border did not exceed Alaska water quality standards and that overall aquatic conditions in the Taku, Stikine and Unuk transboundary rivers support and sustain aquatic life.
The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email